Turkey's caliphate delusions and India's security concerns

Hindustan Times

02-06-2025

Turkey, once embodying Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's secular, modern vision, now stumbles under the iron-fisted whims of a man chasing the ghosts of the past. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has gone from reformer to radical, from statesman to strongman. His current avatar? A self-styled Caliph of the 21st century, broadcasting delusions of grandeur across the Muslim world.
Let us not sugar-coat it, this is not religious revivalism. It is a well-rehearsed, high-budget cosplay of the Ottoman Empire, starring Erdoğan as the lone ranger of the Ummah. His bromance with Pakistan and hostility toward India are not products of ideology but ambition. He treats it as an Influence Olympics and he is doing whatever it takes to win gold.
Cloaked in nostalgia and supercharged by social media, Erdoğan's neo-Ottoman propaganda seeks to radicalise young minds from Kashmir to Kerala. His tactics are straight from the dictator's playbook — mask authoritarianism with messianic rhetoric, fund proxies, push propaganda, and exploit identity fault lines. And India, one of the most diverse nations and an exemplar of pluralism, must level up.
His drones fly across the Line of Control (LoC), but they carry more than narcotics or arms, they carry messages. Messages that say, 'We're watching, we're coming, and we have got technology too.' The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from across the LoC are manufactured in Turkey and rebranded in Pakistan, similar to Chinese missiles with Pakistani names. Same chips, new lies. It's like watching bootleg missiles in a bad spy movie, except this is real. Whether we like it or not, Turkey has built a formidable drone warfare industry, punching far above its weight. Its UAVs have altered battlefields in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and reshaped dynamics in multiple wars across the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA) region. India needs to stop playing nice and start playing smart. Equip Turkey's adversaries, Armenia, Cyprus, Greece, Saudi Arabia, with indigenous drone tech, cyber-defence systems and engage them in sharper diplomacy. Give Erdoğan a reality check: India does not just vibe, it retaliates.
And while Erdoğan plays Sultan on TikTok, real States such as the UAE, backed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt are pushing back — with dignity, not delusional dreams. West Asia is not falling for his bait, and neither should India. These nations are not just challenging his economic model but his ideological export factory. The time has come for a coalition of civilisations, a bloc to counter the radicalism of the Turkey-Pakistan duet. Their CVs are written in blood: Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Kashmiris, and Bengalis. Their history of genocidal experiences is no footnote.
India must stop doom-scrolling while Erdoğan's bots work overtime. The Turkish dissident Gülenist movement – led by Fethullah Gülen and termed by the Erdoğan administration as the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) — has been crushed inside Turkey, but is alive globally. This offers India a diplomatic opportunity. It should offer asylum and give them platforms. Make India the new Istanbul for liberal Turkish exiles. We did not ask for this ideological war, but we cannot afford to lose it.
Meanwhile, the Turkish India-bashing machinery and its infrastructure is vast and well-funded. Over the years, State-backed Turkish media agencies such as the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) and Anadolu Agency (AA), along with countless non-profits and academic institutions, have been hiring ISI proxies from Pakistan as well as Jammu and Kashmir. Similarly, Turkish NGOs such as the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), the Diyanet Foundation and the Turkey Youth Foundation (TUGVA) are running as religious start-ups and trying to dent India's sovereignty. Funded by Ankara and cloaked in cultural exchange, they run recruitment drives without even informing Indian missions. Students lured through flashy scholarships are groomed into soft agents of radicalism. It constitutes academic gaslighting at its finest.
Let us set the record straight: Any Indian or Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cardholder who supports Turkey's radical designs or acts against Indian interests should be stripped of status and access. National identity is not a prop. It is a privilege.
Erdoğan is also using entertainment as his weapon of choice. Turkish serials like Ertugrul and Barbaroslar are Caliphate-core propaganda. These shows are not just binge-worthy, they have brainwash potential. The Kashmir Valley is saturated with clips romanticising religious conquest and resistance — Instagram reels today, ideological grenades tomorrow.
The Imam Hatip schools, funded directly by Erdoğan, act as radical production houses, manufacturing the next generation of zealots, influencers and apologists. Not to forget the IHH, masquerading as a humanitarian NGO, while running parallel political missions in Kashmir and beyond.
Erdoğan is a person of binaries, dichotomies and paradoxes. And while advertising itself as a modern Islamic power committed to dialogue with much fanfare, Turkey's State machinery under Erdoğan simultaneously funds radical voices, fugitives and known extremists in hiding. This duplicity must be exposed.
Erdoğan is not a political phoenix but a paranoid populist. Aging, erratic, and increasingly isolated, he knows his time is short. That is why he is sprinting toward the mirage of Ummah leadership with one foot in delusion and the other in desperation.
India must wake up, show up and scale up. Use media, diplomacy and diaspora networks. Let Erdoğan's own people turn the tide. We don't need missiles to counter every menace: Ideas are mightier than drones. This is not just an external threat. We can no longer afford to treat Turkey's antics as distant drama. This is not fiction. It is Erdoğan's audition for Caliph, and India must ensure he never makes the cut.
Abhishek Singhvi is a senior four-term sitting MP, member, Congress Working Committee, and national spokesperson, Congress. Akash Kumar Singh is a doctoral scholar at the Special Centre for National Security Studies, JNU, and a former LAMP fellow. The views expressed are personal.
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